Which of These 5 Subject Lines Would Get Reported as Spam?
Objective: Given 5 candidate subject lines drafted for a Rent the Runway sale campaign, identify which violate the lesson's rules on capitalization, fake urgency, and stacked spam-trigger words, without flagging the ones that are actually fine.
You're reviewing a batch of subject lines a junior copywriter drafted for Rent the Runway's end-of-season sale before they go into an A/B test.
Score each candidate against the lesson's 6 formulas and the capitalization/urgency/spam-trigger rules. Two of the five are fine as written.
Before you start
What you'll need
Free path (everything below is enough to finish)
Free, simple table for tracking which rule each line passes or fails
The process
Specimens to review
Flag every subject line that violates a rule from the lesson. For each flagged line, name the rule it breaks. Leave the correct ones unflagged.
A. "LAST CHANCE!!! FREE GUARANTEED GIFT, ACT NOW!!!" B. "Still deciding on the dress?" C. "Sale ends tonight, again" (same sale email sent 4 nights in a row with this exact subject) D. "5 rental picks for your next event" E. "Your rental, 20% off for 24 hours"
Specimen: synthetic, realistic
Final deliverable
A scored table of all 5 subject lines, flagging the 2 real violations with the specific rule broken, and confirming the 3 that pass.
See a reference example
Allbirds subject line review (excerpt) FLAGGED: "BUY NOW, LIMITED TIME, ACT FAST!!!" -> ALL CAPS + stacked triggers PASS: "Your Wool Runners are back in stock" -> direct benefit, sentence case
Success criteria
You're done when you can:
- Correctly flags both A and C with the specific rule each breaks
- Does not flag B, D, or E